Recessional: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘Now, the possibility of accomplishing this was so exciting that those of us with whom it was going to be attempted could not sleep the five hours before the battle. I was worried sick, wondering what would happen if some supersharp Japanese admiral were to cross our T and blow us out of the water, one by one.

  ‘I asked an older officer what that would mean and he said: “It will mean our Old Man guessed wrong.” ’

  ‘What happened?’ Armitage asked, and the ambassador said: ‘It’s in the history books. We crossed their T just as Olendorf had planned, destroyed that part of the Japanese fleet and allowed our small carriers in another part of the gulf to turn back the main arm of the enemy fleet, while Halsey sent his planes forward to sink their big carriers to the north.’ He paused, then said: ‘Naval historians believe our battle to the south was the last time in naval history that battleships will ever fire their big guns at enemy ships. Planes will be sent forward to do the killing. And there will never again be a Crossing of the T.’

  Raúl Jiménez’s story had to do with a different kind of war: ‘When I used my paper to wage war against the Medellín cartel, which was assassinating any judges who opposed their criminal drug activities, the boss criminals occupied another newspaper and threatened me with the headline EDITOR JIMÉNEZ CONDEMNED TO DEATH. I brazened it out; they stormed my newspaper and executed my assistant editor, who looked a lot like me. That’s when my wife and I sought refuge in the United States.’

  Senator Raborn had been a marine lieutenant in the battle for New Guinea and had led a patrol-in-strength along the trail from Port Moresby over the mountains to capture the port the Japanese held at Lae: ‘Before we could think of attacking Lae, we had to subdue enemy strongholds at Aitape and Wau. Very tough battles, so we were exhausted when we finally came down the mountains to face Lae itself. I was given orders to lead the assault from the west, and as we moved into position I thought: What a hell of a note! To fight my way clear across this damned island only to get it in the neck at Lae! So at the big push, when we stormed the Japanese position, I held back, planning to forge ahead like gangbusters in the second wave. A second lieutenant saw what I was doing, threw me a look of scorn and contempt and led the marines in. He got it full in the face and I got a medal for my gallant leadership in the conquest of Lae.’ He blew his nose and added what was clearly the truth: ‘But at other actions in Okinawa I made amends, and the medals I earned are for real. The one from Lae I never wear.’

  President Armitage had been an army second lieutenant at the Anzio landing, becoming a captain by field promotions on the march up the boot of Italy to Rome: ‘I was terrified all the way, at every new battle against the Germans, but when we entered Rome and the girls wanted to kiss us as heroes, I moved to the head of the line.’

  These men’s behavior under fire and their brilliant careers in peacetime had earned them the right to pontificate in their years of retirement as members of Raúl’s tertulia, and the Colombian, perhaps, deserved the greatest accolades of all, for he had risked his life many times over to protect the honor of his country, and had left his homeland only when it became hopelessly corrupt.

  The waiters appeared with the dessert and midnight approached, but still the veterans talked of battles lost and won. St. Près had the last word: ‘Then it’s agreed that we finish the plane, install the engine and fly it?’ There was no dissent.

  In addition to Nurse Nora, there was another woman in Gateways who followed the progress of young Betsy Cawthorn and her romantic attachment to Dr. Zorn with more than casual attention. Reverend Quade had, through her professional career, observed so many love affairs, including three at the Palms that had ended in weddings, that she had almost been able to chart Betsy’s growing interest in her doctor. The night after Betsy had revealed her emotions by embracing Zorn in public at the end of her first walk, she had said to herself: Poor child, she’s been desperately in love with him since the moment she arrived, and probably before. Thank the Lord he’s not married, or this could prove a sorry mess.

  Because she wanted to talk with Betsy, she waited till she saw her eating alone one noon when the dining room was nearly empty. The Duchess, of course, was lunching in solitary splendor at table fifteen, and a few couples who did not enjoy preparing noontime meals themselves were at their tables.

  ‘May I join you?’ Reverend Quade asked and Betsy said eagerly: ‘Oh, I would like that. I’ve been wanting to get together so we could talk.’

  ‘Now’s the time,’ the Reverend said as she ordered a light salad.

  ‘I’ve wanted to talk because you’re a minister. Your job is to listen to people who are muddled up.’

  ‘If I’ve seen a young woman recently who’s anything but muddled, it’s you, Betsy. You’re making a remarkable recovery, from what I’ve observed and what they tell me.’

  ‘What did people tell you?’

  ‘It’ll be better if I state it plainly, right at the start. They said that after your terrible accident you had fallen into a deep depression, refused the normal procedures to be followed after any amputation, and since you’d had a double you were entitled to a king-size mourning period. But you carried it too far. You overdid the self-pity.’

  ‘Whoever your mysterious they were, they certainly diagnosed me correctly, but they stopped short, maybe because they didn’t know or didn’t want to know.’

  ‘Should I know?’

  ‘Yes, because I trust you. I refused to deal with psychiatrists. Daddy wanted to bring in three or four different ones, good doctors, I’m sure, but I was scared of them.’

  ‘And you think I’m safer than them?’

  ‘Yes. You’re a trained minister, you have a special compassion—and you’re a woman, too.’

  ‘So what’s the problem? What did they not know that you now want to discuss with me?’

  Betsy paused for some time, then said very tentatively: ‘I came closer to suicide than any of them realized. Very near.’

  ‘You thought your life was over and were willing to end it?’

  ‘I feared that my chances for a normal life of any kind were over. No more tennis, no more hiking in the woods, no more fun of any kind. I was terrified.’

  ‘And now you realize that within a couple of weeks you and I can be walking in the savanna out there, if we choose a reasonably level stretch.’

  ‘Yes, things have changed, and I’m elated, as you’ve probably noticed.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve watched life and color came back into those cheeks.’ She reached out and took Betsy’s hand: ‘It’s so wonderful to see spring after a long winter.’

  ‘And now we come to what’s tormenting me, but in a far less urgent way than the amputations.’

  ‘And what is this slow burn? Sometimes it’s more fatal than the sudden conflagration that people can see and extinguish.’

  ‘If I fell into a deep depression once, can it happen again? I mean, these weeks have been great. Bedford Yancey is so terrific—he has the energy of six people. Nora has been wonderful. And that orthopedic guy is a genius. I tell him: “This doesn’t feel quite right,” and he twists a few screws on that incredible English leg and it feels like a real leg again.’

  Reverend Quade, aware that Betsy was being evasive, asked: ‘And what of Dr. Zorn? Hasn’t he made a contribution?’

  Betsy blushed, but she was obviously eager to discover what Mrs. Quade thought of Andy, so she confessed: ‘I get such mixed signals. This morning in Rehab he was all attention, very supportive. But tomorrow he’ll probably ignore me. Days pass and I don’t even see him.’

  ‘I remember how it used to be with me. The same. Men can be very difficult.’

  There was a pause, and then Reverend Quade said: ‘To get back to what you were saying about depression, are you afraid of a letdown after all the positive things that have happened?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s that I wonder how I would react to something big, like my father’s death. I adore that man, he�
�s everything to me. Or if I never found a man who would want to be my husband.’

  ‘You’re referring to a specific man, perhaps?’

  The question came so suddenly that Betsy blushed and looked away, unable to respond. Very quietly Reverend Quade said: ‘We older women know you’re desperately in love with him. We know the signals. Most of us have been there.…’

  ‘Is it so obvious?’

  ‘Betsy! You shout your message, and it’s a wonderful one. Precisely the one you should be considering. When he comes into a room your eyes are fixed on him. When his name is mentioned at the bridge table, you blush. Right now your face is nearly crimson. We all know, and we think it’s wonderful.’

  ‘Am I so transparent?’

  ‘Betsy, my dear child. He’s worse than you are. Why do you suppose he finds excuses for coming to see you in rehab? Why was he there that day you took your first walk alone? They told me about it. He insisted on being there.’

  ‘Yes. But after I kissed him he pushed me away. He doesn’t want me. After all’—her voice dropped to a whisper—‘I have no legs.’ Uttering the terrible words was so shattering that she lowered her head and wept.

  Reverend Quade waited for Betsy to regain her composure, then said cheerily: ‘I’d like to tell you about what happened to me when I was your age. Our family was in China, in a village not far from Shanghai, and whenever a new young missionary man came to town the entire female population—Americans, British, Chinese—could discuss only one topic: “Which lucky young woman is going to land this one?” When one especially wonderful young man arrived, a Presbyterian missionary straight out of Princeton, a Presbyterian college, I was the one who caught him.’

  ‘That must have been an exciting time even though it must seem so long ago.’

  ‘It seems like yesterday. Three other young women might have got him, including a fine English girl who is still my friend. But I used all my tricks, and in the years when I was struggling along as one of the first women ministers, Laurence was a pillar of strength. Once he almost had a fistfight with a high official of the church.’ She laughed, then added: ‘A good man is truly worth having, no matter the cost, and from what I see and hear, Andy Zorn is a good man. Not a world beater—Laurence wasn’t either—but he was there when I had a tough time becoming a minister and I would expect Zorn would be just as supportive.’

  A smile crossed her face as she recalled those wondrous days of first love, and after a pause she continued: ‘And how do you suppose it was that I summoned the courage to go after Laurence? Because I had watched what happened to women in China who found no husband. They lived in the households of their more fortunate sisters who had one and became amahs. They spent their days cooking in the kitchen and tending their sisters’ babies, and each year growing older and lonelier, never having a life and love they could call their own.’

  She paused, for she feared that what she had to say next would sound too calculating, but then she plunged ahead: ‘One day it struck me with full force that a husband is worth having, and it was worth making every effort to win a good one. So when Laurence appeared I set out to win him with an abandon I never knew I had. You can do the same.’

  As she said this she happened to look across the room at the Duchess, who was finishing her lunch in the solitude she preferred. The time had come to ignore her aloofness, and Mrs. Quade rose and crossed the room to table fifteen: ‘Mrs. Elmore, I have this troubled young woman lunching with me, and I think she would be grateful if you could give her a few words of counsel. May I please bring her over?’

  ‘I prefer to dine alone.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that. But you’re finished eating and this child needs advice.’

  ‘Bring her over.’

  When the three were together, Reverend Quade said: ‘Betsy here has been sadly crippled, as you know, but she’s making a strong recovery, and the question has come up: Can a young woman with such a serious handicap expect to marry?’

  The Duchess pondered this, then said reflectively: ‘I attended a fine girls’ school in England, as I’m sure I must have told you before. We had a math teacher with a horrid purplish birthmark filling the left side of her face. I can see it now. Otherwise she was a handsome woman who lived what appeared to be a rather satisfying life, but no men came near her. Then, in her thirties, a specialist came from Vienna and he bleached that spot clean off her face. Gone. And within six months she was married to our classics teacher.’ She turned to Betsy and said: ‘So your problem seems to parallel Miss Blanton’s. Now with your new legs, there’s nothing wrong with you.’ She then turned her back on Betsy and spoke to the minister: ‘And I would say you’re wasting your time worrying about this young woman. I see her and the doctor leaving with a group to go to the cinema in town, and when they come back and he unloads her walker, it’s obvious to me how he feels about her.’ When Betsy blushed, the Duchess reached across the table, pressed her hand and said: ‘Go for it, lassie, while you still have your looks, and exceptional ones they are, too.’

  Back at their own table, Reverend Quade said: ‘We got a little more there than I bargained for, but I believe that between what I counseled and her down-to-earth advice you have whatever guidance you need.’

  ‘Yes. Philosophically. But what should I actually do?’

  ‘I’ve always preached the Christian response. We put our faith in the God of the Old Testament, listen to the teaching of His Son in the New, and mix in a large dollop of common sense.’

  Leaving for his scheduled appointment, Andy had told Nora: ‘Take charge. I’m off to see this Dr. Leitonen about your nephew,’ and he drove to an office building occupied by a wide assortment of medical experts, including dentists and psychiatrists. Dr. Leitonen shared his office on the third floor with a Dr. Marshall, whom Zorn did not see. Their waiting room had a touch of shabbiness, as if their practice was not going well, but it did have five back copies of The Economist—one of the better magazines in the world, in Zorn’s opinion.

  When he asked the nurse at the reception desk what her two doctors specialized in, she said: ‘Dr. Marshall’s no longer with us. He could not approve of Dr. Leitonen’s concentration on AIDS. Quite often those cases can’t pay, you know.’

  After a short wait, he was ushered into the presence of a most unusual-looking man. Short, squarish, with big body muscles, a thick neck and big hands, Dr. Leitonen had a puckish face with dancing eyes and an infectious smile and, although he could hardly have been out of his forties, a head of snow-white hair. Zorn assumed that his name was Swedish and that he had the startling hair so common in that northern nation.

  Since most patients who came to see him were involved in life-and-death problems, Dr. Leitonen was in the habit of pressing directly to whatever problem was at hand: ‘So Mrs. Angelotti wants you and me to give her some help in the case of that remarkable basketball player.’ He consulted notes: ‘Yes, Jaqmeel Reed. Where do they dream up those names? I saw him several times when he played here in Tampa. My friends who know more about the game than I do think that he could have become a professional. And now it ends in AIDS. I saw him the afternoon after you left him at the hospice. What a hell of a fourth quarter, but there’s much I can do to ease his passage. To give him a decent life—so long as he can hang on.’

  ‘It’s what it’s come down to, isn’t it, hanging on?’

  Dr. Leitonen stared at the ceiling, then said: ‘Dr. Zorn, this nation—the world—is faced with a plague. We’ve only just now identified the causes, and we may be decades away from a cure. By accident I’ve made myself the repository of almost all that we know at present, and I can tell you it isn’t much.’

  ‘What got you involved?’ Zorn asked and Leitonen frowned: ‘Several years ago I was taken almost forcibly—by my nephew—to see a sick friend of his. The kid was in such terrible shape that I said: “You ought to be in a hospital,” and he told me: “Hospitals won’t take people like me. I have AIDS.” I was repelled, ter
rified I might catch it from him, and then I was angry that something like this could come along that our medical profession would shy away from. That day I started on the road to becoming an AIDS specialist.’

  ‘I hear that your partner bailed out.’

  ‘He did and I don’t blame him. Because our office became crowded with frightened friends and relatives—and by young men in pitiful shape. It was not a pleasant place to be. But the deeper I dug into the mystery, the more dedicated I became to helping the victims, to finding solutions.’

  Now, studying Leitonen carefully, Zorn thought that had this dedicated man not concentrated his efforts on AIDS he would probably have been enjoying a lucrative practice, for he had so much energy, such an engaging personality and, obviously, a quick, inquiring mind.

  ‘As you know, in AIDS everything starts with the immune system. We carry a million germs in our bodies, some of them deadly, but we have built-in systems of checks and balances that fight back the little devils. We’ve had the germs every day for years but our defenses keep them at bay. But the immune system can get tired, and then it doesn’t fight back. As you know, when we’re extremely tired, we’re apt to catch a cold, then we rest, the system rests, and when it’s stronger it knocks out the cold.

  ‘But in AIDS the immune system isn’t merely tired. It’s knocked clean to hell, and the most trivial accident, the most insignificant sniffle becomes so powerful that it can kill you. What it will be in Mr. Reed’s case that carries him off we can’t anticipate, and the hell of it is, we can’t even approximate how long it will be before it happens. I have patients who linger on for more than a year, dying a little every day, terrified, watching the others die quickly. Either way, it’s a terrible end to a life, but we have no answer to the problem.’